


Like a Train on a Track

by animeangelriku



Series: Like a Train on a Track [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Community: kbl-reversebang, Klaine, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 09:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1894053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animeangelriku/pseuds/animeangelriku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt meets leather-jacket-clad motorcyclist Blaine on their first day of junior year at McKinley High School. When two bullies inadvertently bring them closer, a strange yet beautiful friendship begins that might someday turn into something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Train on a Track

**Author's Note:**

> (If the first half is perfect, it's only because lovely Chloe (undefinedkosmos) beta-read it for me. If the other half isn't, it's because I finished it today and had no time to send it to her. Which is only my fault, because I totally miscalculated my priorities and my own resolve to sit down and write, and I just hope this is what lovely Lito (somebodyholdyoutooclose) wanted out of her picture. Honey, I tried to do everything you wanted me to do and I'm so sorry if I couldn't. A huge shout-out to you both for cheering me on when I thought I couldn't do it!
> 
> Also, this is only the first part of a two-part fic! Don't worry, you'll get the sequel to this in due time. ;D)

That September morning was chillier than Kurt had expected, so the thin summer scarf around his neck didn’t do much to keep him warm. He shivered as he parked his motorcycle as close as he could to the school’s entrance. He checked his coif and grimaced. 

_This is what happens when you don’t wear a helmet,_ he thought with a sigh. 

His father had promised him they would go helmet-shopping after class, and Kurt _seriously_ needed a new one. His hair couldn’t stand one more day of being redone in front of the freaking bathroom mirror. Besides, he got uncomfortable when he wasn’t wearing a helmet; he felt he was going to fall off his bike and crack his skull open. 

When he took off his earphones to wrap them around his phone, he heard the roar of another bike’s engine suddenly come to a stop a couple of feet beside him. Around five parking spots to the right, Kurt saw a guy wearing a leather jacket and a _(gorgeous)_ purple helmet getting off a bright orange motorcycle. 

_Someone really doesn’t wanna go unnoticed,_ Kurt thought. Then he shut up after glancing down at his own green bike. 

Who was this guy? Kurt had never seen him before, so he guessed he was a new transfer student. As far as he could tell, the guy didn’t seem to be a troublemaker, though the leather jacket threw him off. Then again, Kurt wore a brown leather jacket himself sometimes, and you wouldn’t find him tossing innocent freshmen into dumpsters. 

He hoped this transfer student wouldn’t cause him—or anyone else—any problems. 

Kurt shivered again and wrapped his scarf tighter around his neck. He pulled the strap of his bag onto his shoulder.

“Nice bike.”

He turned on his heels with a small, hopefully inaudible, yelp of surprise. The new guy was standing in front of him, hands in the pockets of his jacket as he stared at Kurt’s motorcycle. He had an appreciative smile on his face, and his backpack was slung over his shoulders. 

“Is it a Hyosung?”

Oh, right. He was talking about the bike.

“Ah, no,” Kurt said, leaning back against his vehicle. “It’s actually a United Motors.”

The curly-haired guy nodded. “Rookie mistake,” he said, and then he glanced up at Kurt. “I’ve never been able to tell the difference between those two. A motorcycle expert might say, ‘oh, of course, this is a green United Motors from the year of…’” He narrowed his eyes, and Kurt raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

“This is the part where you say the year your bike’s from.”

Kurt chuckled. “Right, right. 2009. Got it last year, though.”

“‘A green United Motors from 2009’,” the guy finished. “But as you can see, I don’t even know how old it is.”

“Well,” Kurt said with a smile, “if it makes you feel any better, even my dad can’t tell one bike from the other sometimes. And he owns a repair shop.”

The transfer student (or “Curly-Hair”, as Kurt was starting to call him in his head) let out a laugh, and it sounded nothing like Kurt had expected from him: it was soft and sweet and melodic. “That _does_ make me feel better,” he said. “It means there’s still hope for me. Thanks.”

 _All right, so far, so good,_ Kurt thought. He leaned further so that he could take a look at the guy’s bright orange bike. “And yours is a…” He lifted one finger when the guy seemed about to speak. “Wait, hold on, let me take a guess.” It was quite similar to the one Kurt had, but it looked newer. Kurt had repaired and updated his more times than he could count so that it wouldn’t break apart, but the orange motorcycle didn’t look like it had gone through any major changes. So it wasn’t as old as 2009—which, granted, wasn’t that long ago—but it wasn’t last year’s, either. “Is it a Kawasaki Ninja?”

Curly Hair’s mouth fell open, and then he started chuckling. “You’re good,” he said. “That was really good. How did you know just by looking at it? Are _you_ a motorcycle expert?”

“No, I just spent _months_ looking at bike magazines and browsing through websites to find the cheapest one I could afford. The Kawasaki Ninja was one of my first options.”

“It’s served me well,” said the guy with a nod at his motorcycle. 

Kurt’s phone rang with an alarm he’d set for five minutes before seven o’clock to make sure he could stop in the bathroom to redo his hair and still make it to class on time.

“I should get going,” he said. “If I don’t, I’m gonna be late for French.”

“I suppose that means we’ve run out of time,” the guy said, and the two of them began to make their way to the school’s entrance, between the little groups of people in front of them. “But I hope you can also guess the year my bike’s from, since you’re nearly an expert.”

“That’s gonna take me a while longer,” Kurt said. “But I _may_ have an answer for you by the end of the day.”

“That’s a lot more time than I got! That’s not fair!” said Curly-Hair with a smile. 

“Okay, tell you what.” Kurt stopped right outside his homeroom, and the guy halted next to him. “I’ll try to guess the year of your bike, and you try to guess something else about me.”

“Like what?” Curly-Hair asked, leaning against the doorframe, and if Kurt didn’t know better, he would suspect that this motorcyclist was, _perhaps,_ flirting with him. He decided he really wasn’t against that idea. 

“Anything,” Kurt answered. “How much my bike cost, or the name of the first song on my phone, or if I speak another language besides French.”

“Well,” said the guy. “I might be taking a risk here, but I’m guessing you also speak English.”

Kurt let out a laugh. “That would be a correct guess.”

“So that makes up for getting the bike thing wrong, right?”

“I guess it does.”

The bell rang, and the guy’s eyes widened. “Shit, now _I’m late,_ ” he said. “But I’ll look for you after school to see how our score goes.”

Are we really doing this after a few minutes of knowing each other? Kurt wondered. He had to bite his lip to prevent an untimely burst of giggles. “All right,” he said. “I’ll see you after school.”

“Great. I’ll see you then.” The guy smiled and turned around to walk to his own classroom and, with his hands still in the pockets of his jacket, he reminded Kurt of Danny Zuko from _Grease_. If he’d had a cigarette in his mouth, he would have looked a lot like John Travolta when he was still good-looking. 

Only when he was around fifteen minutes into his French class (fifteen minutes he had spent not paying any attention, dear god, why couldn’t this people just learn their _passé compose_ already?) did Kurt realize he hadn’t asked Curly-Hair for his name.

And, as a matter of fact, he hadn’t given him his own name. 

_And,_ Kurt noticed, he’d also forgotten to _redo his hair._

_Well,_ merde, he thought, huffing out a sigh. 

*

When Kurt got out of school and headed toward the parking lot, Curly-Hair was waiting for him by Kurt’s United Motors, sitting on it with his arms crossed over his chest. 

“So I was thinking,” he said after Kurt came to a halt in front of him. “First of all, if you’re taking French, you probably already took _and_ passed Spanish. Which is amazing, because I’m _still_ taking Spanish. I just _can’t_ with the verbs, man! Second, about the price of your bike, I can’t possibly begin to _guess_ that, because I’d need to know when you bought it to even start trying. And third, if you want me to guess the name of the first song on your phone, I think it’s only fair that you give me the first word of the song. Because, really, it could be ‘a’, or ‘an’, or ‘all’, or ‘ABC’…”

“Is that your way of telling me your guess for the first song on my phone is _ABC_?” Kurt asked, and he crossed his arms over his chest, too. 

“Hey, I will have you know that _ABC_ knocked The Beatles off the Billboard Hot 100 back in the ‘70s!” the guy said, lifting a finger, as if he could emphasize his point with that raised finger. 

“Fair enough,” Kurt said. “So, is that your guess?”

“Only if I’m right.”

With a smile of satisfaction, he said, “You’re not.”

“Then no, that’s not my guess.”

“You can’t do that!” Kurt gasped. 

The guy grinned. “I said it was my guess only if I was right! And since I’m not, it’s not my guess! I warned you!”

“Cheater,” Kurt mumbled under his breath. 

“Oh, shut up,” Curly-Hair said, getting up from Kurt’s United Motors. He continued talking while he and Kurt walked to his orange Kawasaki Ninja. “You’re the one who hasn’t taken any guesses!”

Kurt was about to argue that, technically, he had already taken _one_ —and gotten it right, by the way—but he realized it would be useless. He’d pictured the guy’s motorcycle all day long, trying to figure out if it was one of the recent models or if its owner had updated it the way he had done to his. “I just want to know if your bike’s from before 2010 or after 2010.”

“Wait a second,” said the guy, sitting on his vehicle. “I didn’t get any clues, why should you?”

“Because I let you off with the song guess,” Kurt replied. 

Curly-Hair threw his head back. “Okay, _fine._ It’s from before 2010.”

 _Wow,_ Kurt thought. He turned away to glance at the motorcycle opposite his. “It doesn’t look that old.”

“I may not know much about bikes in general,” the guy said with a smug smirk, “but I know a lot about mine. Care to make your guess now?”

Kurt bit his lower lip. He didn’t remember the Kawasaki Ninja bikes he’d seen that had come out before 2010, and the fact that this one certainly didn’t show its age made things even more difficult. 

He decided to take a shot. 

“2008?”

The guy’s face told Kurt he’d gotten it wrong. “You went slightly ahead.”

“By how much?”

“A year,” Curly-Hair answered. “Got this baby about two years ago, but it’s from 2007.”

“Are you serious?” Kurt asked, doing everything he could to keep his jaw from hitting the floor. “Are you some kind of miracle worker? Not even _my_ baby looks that amazing.”

“Oh, don’t be so modest,” the guy said. “Sure, it doesn’t look like it came out last year, but I would’ve guessed 2011, 2010, _max._ ” 

Kurt smiled and licked his lips. “Why, thank you,” he said. “I worked days on it, and I’m glad someone else appreciates the outcome. Still, if you ever want to exchange tips on how to, you know…” 

The guy tried to keep his grin off his face by pressing his mouth into a thin line. “‘Pimp’ my ride?”

“I wasn’t even _thinking_ about that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, if you want to exchange tips on how to _pimp your ride_ ,” Kurt repeated, “you could give me your phone number.”

The smugness left the Curly-Hair’s face, replaced by a sort of admiration. 

_That’s right,_ Kurt thought. _Two can play at this game._

“You’re asking for my phone number before you even know my name?” the guy asked him, uncrossing his arms to hide his hands on the pockets of his jacket. “That’s a little bold.”

“Are you offering to give me your name as well?”

The guy grinned again, and he held out his hand. “Give me your phone and you’ll find out.”

Kurt narrowed his eyes at the guy, but he still took out his phone, unlocked it, and handed it over. Curly-Hair touched the screen with his thumb a couple of times, and then he gave it back to Kurt. He climbed on his motorcycle and turned on the engine. Kurt looked at his contacts and tried to find which one was new.

“It’s Blaine,” said the guy— _Blaine._ His bike’s engine revved twice. 

“Kurt.”

“I guess I’ll see you later, _Kurt_ ,” Blaine said, and before Kurt could say anything else, he revved his engine again (which prompted Kurt to mutter, “Show-off”) and he drove away, leaving Kurt standing where his bike had been parked. 

*

Blaine wasn’t surprised when he got home and his parents were nowhere to be found. He took off his helmet and put his keys on the bowl by the door. Then he went to the kitchen, only to find a note taped to the refrigerator. His dad’s messy handwriting stared back at him. 

_Hope you had a good day at your new school. We’ll be home late, but there are leftovers in the fridge._

Well, at least he’d been left a note. He was making progress with his parents since he had come out to them last year, and he was kind of proud that he’d made the most progress with his father. His mother, though, a woman who had always wanted grandchildren from her two sons… the progress Blaine had made with her seemed like baby steps to him. But those baby steps were a start. 

Just as he was about to open the fridge and get the leftovers from last night’s dinner, Blaine’s phone _dinged_ with a message. 

It was from an unknown number. With a frown, he unlocked his phone.

_I noticed that your bright orange motorcycle and your purple helmet look really good together. Color-wise. So I was wondering if I might ask for your opinion: what color of helmet would look incredible with a green bike?_

_The hell?_ Blaine thought. Someone he’d talked to whom he didn’t have as a contact on his phone… someone who had also seen his motorcycle and his hel—

Kurt. That guy Blaine had referred to in his mind as ‘the guesses guy.’ He smiled to himself and quickly answered the text message.

_Blaine  
Hello, Kurt. :)_

_Hi, Blaine,_ came another message, followed by an identical smiley face. _So, what color of helmet?_

He pictured Kurt in his head; his brown hair—which looked slightly ruffled, but that was because unprotected hair and a high-speed motorcycle ride wasn’t a good combination—his eyes that changed from blue to gray to green every time Blaine looked at them, how amazing he looked on his green bike… Not like Blaine was an expert when it came to complementary colors or anything of the sort, but he could try.

 _Maybe a shade of blue? Not a really dark one or anything, but a brighter one so that it matches your bike,_ he replied.

Okay, so perhaps he wasn’t thinking about the motorcycle. Perhaps he was thinking about the fact that the green and the blue would match Kurt’s incredible eyes. 

_Blue? Really?_ was Kurt’s answer. 

_Blaine  
You could try one on and just see if you like it. If you don’t, you can never listen to me again._

Instead of receiving an immediate response, Blaine’s phone went silent for a few minutes. He took out the leftovers from the refrigerator and removed the tinfoil covering the plate so he could put it in the microwave. The time on his phone was 16:14 when he heard another text message alert. 

_Turns out that the blue one is one of the only colors I like in a helmet,_ Kurt texted him. _And, you know, purple._

Blaine finally allowed himself to grin so widely that he thought his face might crack. All day long, while he and Kurt had been talking and _flirting_ (which wasn’t something Blaine had ever been particularly _good_ at), he’d forced himself to keep a serious expression in front of his new acquaintance. But now that he was home and no one could see him… well, if a small giggle came out of his mouth, no one could prove it but him. 

He was glad that he hadn’t gone over the top with Kurt. Either that, or Kurt was a gentle soul who didn’t dare tell Blaine, “You know what, your flirting _sucks_ ,” to his face. 

Blaine ate his leftovers by himself. It had, for the most part, been his usual routine ever since his father was promoted and his mother was offered a second job. With his older brother Cooper having left home a few years ago, sometimes Blaine simply felt alone. He had wanted to feel bitter about being by himself most of the time, but he knew both his parents had taken decisions that could only economically benefit their family.

Talking to Kurt through text messages kept him smiling all evening, though. Blaine did some chores so that his mother wouldn’t flip out about the house being a complete mess when she got home (“And you know we can’t afford help, Blaine!” she had screamed multiple times at him), he did some tinkering with his bike before ultimately deciding it was perfect as it was, he downloaded Katy Perry’s _Roar_ (he would’ve normally bought it, but he knew both his parents would kill him if he spent any money on anything he didn’t need), and he tidied his room while listening to Nirvana, but he didn’t feel any tiredness yet. It would eventually come, but he wasn’t feeling it at the moment.

Blaine didn’t feel as alone as he had thought he would when his parents announced he would be starting the school year in a public school. He had understood the reasons for the change. His family had been having trouble with money since he’d started going to a private one. Blaine had never been the best at making friends, but the friendship he had unconsciously initiated that morning had begun on a good note, at least.

Maybe being in a public school wouldn’t be as bad as he had thought, either. His day had passed peacefully and uneventfully: no bullies shoving him or other kids into lockers, no jocks beating “nerds” up, no cheerleaders being bitchy to other girls… Then again, it had only been his first day. 

Blaine was in bed—fighting with himself to keep his eyes open, the phone in his hands down to twenty percent battery—when his father got home around three hours later.

“Blaine?” his dad called out from downstairs. “Blaine, are you still awake?” 

“No,” Blaine answered, typing out a final text to send to Kurt. (He was totally kidding himself; this was his third “final text.”)

“Did you have a good day at school?”

“Mh-hm.”

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” his father said. 

“Okay,” Blaine called back. “Night, Dad.”

“Goodnight, Blaine.”

Before hitting _Send_ and letting drowsiness and exhaustion overtake him, Blaine wrote a reminder on his phone to talk to his father the next day. He appreciated the man’s efforts to be more supportive of him and thought he should let him know every once in a while. 

_Blaine  
Okay. I should really stop talking to you right now because I’m about to drop dead…_

_Kurt  
… wait a second, what the hell did you say?_

 

Blaine blinked and rubbed his eyes. Oh. He hadn’t exactly written “about to drop dead.”

_Blaine  
Sorry I didn’t even see that “about to drop dead” suddenly changed to “abottod rop deadddddd.” Didn’t mean to do that._

_Kurt  
Mister, you better not answer to THIS text, do you hear me? … well, do you SEE my words?_

_Blaine  
Yeah, ok, I’m going._

_Kurt  
What did I JUST say?_

_Blaine  
GNIGHT KURT._

_Kurt  
Goodnight, Blaine._

Blaine was asleep before he read the last message.

*

Kurt was a little late the next day; his cell phone had died while texting Blaine last night and _surprise_ , he’d forgotten to plug it into his charger, so he had no alarm to wake him up other than his father yelling, “KURT! Get up, you’re late for school!” He managed to charge his phone for about ten minutes before he ran out of his house.

His tardiness didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would, mainly because he now had a beautiful blue helmet that saved him the five minutes he would have otherwise spent in front of the bathroom mirror redoing his hair every morning. Being late, though, kept him from seeing Blaine in the parking lot. At least he saw the bright orange motorcycle parked across from his own, and Blaine _had_ told him he would see him the next day—before not even Autocorrect could figure out what words he’d meant to type—so he knew he simply needed to wait until school was over to talk to him.

Ever since Kurt had started using a motorcycle as his means of transportation and wearing a leather jacket from time to time, a lot of people had kept away from him, and he himself had kept away from others. That worked just fine with him, but sometimes he did wonder what it’d be like to have someone his own age he could talk to. 

So what if he and Blaine flirted back and forth a little? Guys who didn’t let themselves flirt with their guy friends just because they were straight were so stupidly ridiculous, Kurt wanted to punch every single man he heard saying the words, “No homo.” 

_“Quel est le passé du verbe «avoir» par le pronom «nous»?”_ asked Mrs. Bellamy at the front of the classroom, snapping Kurt out of his thoughts. _“Mademoiselle…”_ She looked at her list of attendance to pick a random name. _“Mademoiselle Fabray?”_

Oh, right, he was in French class. He should at least try listening to the questions the woman was asking. Just in case his name was randomly picked to answer one. 

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he quickly glanced at it.

_Blaine  
Everything okay? I didn’t see you in the morning._

Carefully watching his teacher to make sure her back was still turned, Kurt typed a quick reply.

_Kurt  
Yeah, I just got in late. Hey, my phone’s running in ten minutes of battery, can I talk to you later?_

_Blaine  
Yeah, sure! _

_Kurt  
What class are you in? Maybe I can catch up to you then._

_Blaine  
Spanish. *barfs* Can I pay you to do my homework? :’( We’re doing verbs. VERBS. My one true enemy. _

Kurt bit his lip so that he wouldn’t laugh out loud. Mrs. Bellamy was really weird about cell phones ringing in class or students finding other things to be more entertained with than conjugations and verb tenses. 

_Kurt  
Oh, no. I wouldn’t go back to Spanish if you paid me a million dollars. _

_Blaine  
Darn it! I wouldn’t be able to give you even a hundred, much less a million._

Kurt nearly burst out at the words “darn it.” Who did Blaine think he was, a gentleman from last century?

_Blaine  
Hm. Maybe we can come to another sort of agreement? I mean, what could I help you with? Are you bad with Algebra or Chemistry or something?_

_Kurt  
Errrrrr… I’m not the best, but I can usually understand them pretty well._

_Blaine  
IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN’T DO, KURT???_

Kurt’s phone showed him an alert of 5% remaining battery.

_Kurt  
I cannot magically charge my phone without my charger. Which would be pretty useful, since it’s about to die. Meet you outside your Spanish classroom?_

Only after he had sent the message did he realize what he’d said. He hadn’t meant to be so forward; he had meant to say he would see Blaine later, maybe in the parking lot after class, or maybe they could cross paths in the hallways. 

_Blaine  
Sure! Now turn off your phone before it dies. _

Oh. Well. Perhaps it wasn’t as bold as he thought it’d been. Or maybe Blaine was amused by Kurt’s straightforwardness. 

_Kurt  
ALL RIGHT. FINE. Maybe if I stop talking to you, you’ll be able to pay attention to your teacher so that you don’t need to pay anyone to do your homework._

_Blaine  
… RUDE._

The last text he sent was a smiley face that looked like this: _;D_

*

Kurt was able to talk to Blaine after French for only a couple of seconds. His Spanish teacher had dismissed them two minutes after the bell rang, and Blaine had to hurry up to his next classroom—along with the rest of his classmates—to make it on time to Algebra. 

“I’ll catch up with you later!” he yelled at Kurt as he ran past him in the hallway. 

At the end of the next period, though, the same thing happened to Kurt. He had forgotten that the Chemistry teacher for the juniors, Mrs. Johnson, tended to start a new lesson ten minutes before the class ended, and she wouldn’t dismiss them until she had finished it… which usually happened around three minutes before their next period. Now it was him who shouted, “See you later!” at Blaine over his shoulder when they crossed paths in the hallway. And it wasn’t like they could talk between classes, what with Kurt’s phone having no battery. 

All in all, they weren’t able to see each other between their first three classes. They had their lunch break after that, so Blaine hoped and wished he found Kurt in the cafeteria. Now he only needed to get to his locker to drop off his books and pick up the ones he was going to need for the rest of the day— 

Blaine heard them before he saw them: two jocks from the hockey team repeatedly throwing a boy against the lockers. He was much smaller than them, which made Blaine wonder if he was a freshman. Then again, jocks usually looked gigantic to Blaine. One of the hockey players had long black hair tied in a ponytail, and the other one’s brown hair was sticking up in all directions. They were calling the boy things like “nerd” and “stick” and “fishbone” and “faggot.”

The jocks Blaine had met before would rather face no confrontation. They had always beaten him when he was alone or with a friend, and they usually did their beatings in groups of three or four so that they had the advantage. All in all, it seemed like they had muscles to intimidate others and not for anything else. 

Names and insults, Blaine was used to hearing. But the word “faggot,” and the fact that all the students in the hallway were just watching and walking past them, sent him into an almost blinding rage. He hated that word. He had been called that exact same thing when he was younger, when he was a scared little kid who used to hate himself out of fear of who he was.

But now he wasn’t a scared little kid. Now he didn’t hate himself. Now he wasn’t afraid of who he was.

And now he had the courage to fight these ridiculous jocks. 

“Hey!” Blaine yelled, loud enough to get the attention of the hockey players. He stomped towards them, and the one who was currently holding the bullied boy by the front of his shirt, the one with the ponytail, let go of him and actually took a step back. Blaine came to a stop a short distance away from them. “I thought sports’ stars like you had better things to do than push someone smaller around.”

The one who had taken a step back spoke. “Get out of here, runt. This doesn’t concern you.”

Blaine looked at the boy and nodded slightly with his head. The boy immediately understood what he was being told; he turned around and sprinted away. 

“Well,” the spiky-haired jock said. “I guess now we need another nerd.”

“Seriously?” Blaine couldn’t help the laugh he let out. “Is that the best you can come up with?”

The first jock (Blaine was going to start thinking of them as Ponytail and Spikes, at least for the time being) punched his open palm. “It’s better than anything you’ll come up with after we punch your teeth out. We can take on a runt.”

“Care to take on two then?”

Kurt was suddenly making his way toward them through the hallway, and he looked about as angry as Blaine had felt a few seconds ago, after hearing the jocks call the kid “faggot.” He passed the bullies and came to a stop next to Blaine, his arms crossed over his chest. 

“Well?” he taunted the hockey players. “Two against two. You up for it, big guys?”

“Spikes” smirked. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, we can pummel another runt, why not?”

The two of them came straight at them, and for a second, Blaine was at a loss for what to do. But then he remembered the self-defense and boxing classes he had taken after he’d gotten his first serious beating and did the first thing he thought of. When Ponytail was a step away from him, Blaine took his arm and twisted it behind the guy’s back. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kurt judo flipping the other hockey player over his back, holding him down with a foot to his chest. 

Judo. Flipping. 

_Now that is something you don’t see every day,_ Blaine thought as the bully he was now holding down to the floor cried out in pain. Around the four students, people had stopped to watch the commotion. 

“You should try to use something called your _brain_ before messing with other kids,” Kurt said through clenched teeth. “I highly recommend it so that you don’t get your asses kicked.”

“You heard him,” Blaine said, letting go of Ponytail’s arm at the same time Kurt let Spikes stand up. The two bullies backed away from them with frowns on their faces. They clenched their teeth and seemed to start growling, as if they were animals. 

“This is _not_ over!” yelled Spikes while he and Ponytail started retreating. “We will get you and your faggot boyfriend next time!”

“And we’ll be waiting!” Kurt yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth. “By the way, nice haircut, _asshole_!” The two jocks flipped them off with their middle fingers, which, inexplicably, made Kurt burst into laughter. “Yeah, real mature!” 

Kurt’s laugh was so contagious that Blaine began to laugh, too, and for the first time since Kurt had come to his aid, Blaine turned to look at him. He was grinning like a child who had finally gotten something he’d wanted for a long time. 

He turned to look at Blaine, and the smile on his face faded. “Blaine, are you okay?”

Oh. He was being spoken to. And by the urgent tone in Kurt’s voice—a noticeable contrast to the almost aloof tone he had used with the jocks—it wasn’t the first time. Around them, the students that had gathered started to disperse, as if they had been watching a new show on TV and now it was over. 

“Yeah,” Blaine said. “Yeah, I’m fine. I would ask you the same thing, but that judo flip tells me I should be asking _him_ that.”

Kurt laughed again, loudly and joyfully. “I would say I’m sorry I did that, but I’m really not. Thankfully, those self-defense classes I took were worth it.”

The casual way in which Kurt had uttered those words held so much more than he was letting on, and Blaine was incredibly tempted to ask how long he had allowed himself to be broken by someone else before he decided it was time to fight back. He knew it had taken him long enough.

“What about that arm-twist?” Kurt playfully punched Blaine’s shoulder. Was it considered a punch, even a playful one, if Kurt had simply touched his shoulder with his fist? “That guy was almost twice your size and you took him down in two seconds.”

“Is that your way of saying I’m small?” Blaine asked with a smile.

Kurt rolled his eyes. “No,” he said in mock exasperation. “That’s my way of saying that I think…” He paused, took a deep breath, as if he wasn’t sure of how he wanted to end his sentence, and then resumed talking with a smile perking up the corners of his mouth. “I think that was seriously amazing.”

“I insist on the judo flip,” Blaine said, and Kurt, once more, burst into laughter. He covered his mouth with the back of his hand, as if he were embarrassed. Blaine barely managed to hold back the words, _Hey, don’t do that, I really like the sound of your laugh. You should laugh a lot more because it sounds beautiful. “You’ve got to teach me how to do that.”_

“Oh, I don’t know,” Kurt said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t doubt you’ll be able to judo flip a guy a head taller than you—”

Blaine chuckled. “All right, _now_ you’re calling me small.”

“Well, I didn’t want to say it like _that…_ ”

Now it was Blaine who softly punched Kurt’s arm. “Will you show me if I show you how to twist a guy’s arm?” Kurt rubbed his arm, which boosted Blaine’s ego, even just a little bit (although Kurt was probably exaggerating for his sake, which only boosted his ego a lot more than it should have). 

“You know, Blaine, you really don’t know how to make a fair trade,” Kurt said, smiling. “First you want me to do your Spanish homework when you have nothing to help me with. And now you want me to teach you how to judo flip people when all you can offer me is teaching me how to twist someone’s arm?”

“It isn’t my fault that my own self-defense classes didn’t teach me to judo flip bullies!”

Blaine had meant for it to sound nonchalant and unimportant, like he had taken self-defense classes just for the fun of it, not so that he wouldn’t end up on a hospital with a broken leg, a broken arm, and a couple of fractured ribs. Except that he probably didn’t sound as aloof as he had wanted to say, because Kurt’s mouth fell in the shape of an “o”. 

“I… I see,” Kurt said. The next time he smiled, it was only slightly. “Okay, I’ll make you a deal.”

“You are awfully good at making those,” Blaine said.

“Yeah, you could probably learn from me.” He made a face that Kurt promptly ignored. “What if I teach you how to judo flip any jerk that tries to beat the shit out of you,” Kurt began, “and you, I don’t know… buy me lunch today?”

Blaine couldn’t help raising a questioning eyebrow—well, he attempted to. Cooper had always been able to, but no matter how hard Blaine tried, he couldn’t quite do it. Were they going back to flirting back and forth, or was this a legitimate “I forgot my lunch money so you would save me from starving” situation?

“Unless you want to recur to twisting people’s arms when they come at you with their fists raised.”

“All right, fine,” Blaine said, unable to hold back the chuckle that escaped his mouth. It made Kurt grin again, and Blaine felt the need to make a mental list of things that made Kurt smile. “I’ll buy you lunch. Sadly, it’ll have to be the cheapest item on the cafeteria menu, though.”

Thankfully, Kurt didn’t ask him why or press him about the matter. “Okay,” he said with a smile that Blaine immediately mirrored. “So, we have met each other for nearly two whole days and you’re already buying me lunch. I think this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship, Blaine.”

“I think the beautiful friendship has already started,” Blaine argued, feeling like he might be crossing the line between flirting and going too far, but not exactly minding; as long as Kurt didn’t find it uncomfortable. “I just need to get to my locker first.”

“Sure thing,” Kurt said, and he wound his arm through Blaine’s so suddenly that Blaine had no chance to refuse the intimacy. Not that he would have refused it, anyway. “Shall I walk you to your locker?”

“I would appreciate your company, yes,” Blaine said, and the silliness of the entire situation made them both grin.

“It’s the least I can do.” Kurt nudged Blaine’s shoulder with his own as they made their way through the hallway. “You _are_ buying me lunch, after all.”

“Well, you’re teaching me how to judo flip anyone who comes at me with their fists in front of their faces,” Blaine told him. “It’s the least _I_ can do.”

He thought that Kurt would have something else to add, but he simply chuckled and accompanied Blaine to his locker, their arms interlaced. They came across a couple of students talking in groups or standing by their own lockers. Some of them seemed to recognize Kurt and Blaine from the incident with the hockey players, and they stared at the two of them with some sort of amazement that made Blaine feel wonderfully proud of himself. As Kurt apparently noticed the stares they were receiving, he tightened his grip on Blaine’s arm and held his head high while they walked past the students. 

For the first time in years, Blaine felt empowered. He felt like he could do anything as long as he had Kurt by his side. 

A beautiful friendship this would be, indeed.


End file.
